Sophie Maille rscj
Introduction: The seasons of our hearts change like the seasons of the fields. There are seasons of wonder and hope, seasons of suffering and love, seasons of healing, dying and rising, and seasons of faith.
(Extracts from: Seasons of Your Heart, by Macrina Wiederkehr, pp. xi, xii)
First Reading: Macrina describes the mental posture of Advent as one of ‘Standing on Tiptoe’: when we are called to vision, expectation and birth. (Ibid. p. 40)
“Standing on Tiptoe” is not a children’s game of balance, she says. Rather, it is the beautiful prayer of balancing God’s promises with our joyful expectation. It is the season of hope! We are God’s Story of Hope.
The Christian heart has a built-in urgency to expect good things. And why not? We have been promised so much:
- eternal life
- answered prayers
- a dwelling place in heaven
- healing and forgiveness
- living water
- resurrection
- a new heart
It is no wonder then, that in spite of all the brokenness of our lives, we are still standing on tiptoe, waiting for the glorious freedom promised us as children of God. This confident waiting is called hope, and our lives are empty without it.... We cannot teach someone to hope. We give hope by living out of our own hope. We give hope by eagerly awaiting the blessings that have been promised us.... Our joyful expectation might be just the healing ointment needed to minister to someone’s tired hope.
Have I my own Gospel story of hope?
Am I a person of hope?
How do I live it?
(Pause for reflection — then sharing)
Second Reading: Romans 8: 18-25 (Paraphrased)
It appears to me that whatever we suffer now will show up only dimly when compared to the wonders God has in store for us. It is as though all creation is standing on tiptoe longing to see an unforgettable vision, the children of God being born into wholeness.
Although creation is unfinished, still in the process of being born, it carries within, a secret hope.
And the hope is this: A day will come when we will be rescued from the pain of our limitation and incompleteness and be given our share in a freedom that can only belong to the children of God.
At the present moment all creation is struggling as though in the pangs of childbirth. And that struggling creation includes even those of us who have had a taste of the spirit. We peer into the future with our limited vision, unable to see all that we are destined to be, yet believing because of a hope we carry so deep within.
Silent Reflection:
“All creation is struggling.... We are a people who “dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”
Let’s take some moments to name for ourselves the ‘struggling’, the ‘darkness’, that we experience in our world today. Which areas of ‘darkness’ touch us personally in this Advent Season” Pause.
Intercessions:
Let us offer our prayers of petition, our prayer of dependence on God for the areas in which, we as a people, need the birth of Christ in our hearts, in our world:
“Advent is not only the time in which we name the darkness;
it is also the time in which we refuse to dwell in this darkness. “
We ask for this grace of hope, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Music: Like a Shepherd or another song of your choice.
Maureen Currie rscj
Province of Canada (+ 2005)
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